Eleven: Anastasia
by LabyrinthDweller
Summary: Eleven chapter story with colors for prompts. For the 1997 animated film "Anastasia".
1. Red

_Before you read any of my writing, I'm making you go over to an author by the username of **J. Fontaine.** It's fair to both say that I stole and yet did not steal their idea. Of course it looks a hell of a lot like stealing right now because it's Anastasia, but if you see the document I have for these stories, their genres run all over the place, dealing with even my original characters. (as well as I have a zillion documents with different writing prompts and themes) But **J. Fontaine's "**_**Polychromatism", parts I-V**_ is far better than mine, and also if you're looking for the more relationship-centric stuff, theirs is the place to go! It's not that I won't have relationship stuff in here, it just may or may not be as common. With Anastasia? Probably more common. But for other fandoms of which this type of story will surely pop up for someday, not as much. Probably._

_Anyways, just an eleven-chapter story based off of the writing themes dealing with colors, sometimes literally, sometimes figuratively. Eleven colors in all: Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Purple, White, Gray, Brown, Black. No pink, because indigo is generally a harder color to write for, also, I like the number eleven better._

* * *

**Red**

Using the handles above him, Vlad uneasily stood up between the click-clacks of the train. Groaning as his joints creaked, he steadied himself against the wall. Across the tiny cabin Anya slept huddled against the seat, her ragged coat as a blanket and her one bag as her pillow. She was naught else but skin and bones, smeared with dirt and ratty in appearance and manners. But she had the face and personality of a Romanov; they could not have found someone else that struck such a drastic likeness in their lifetime.

He looked down to Dmitri who was double checking their traveling papers. Smiling, he stretched out his cramped limbs.

"We couldn't have found a better girl," he mentioned on the off-hand. Dmitri scoffed.

"I'm just glad that she's _finally_ asleep. I don't have to hear her voice anymore."

"She's very inquisitive," Vlad agreed, still smiling. Dmitri glared at him, turning the page of his passport without looking at it. He saw the smile on the older man's face, and knew exactly what he was thinking about.

"One more word about 'unspoken attractions' and I'm intentionally screwing up your papers." Vlad chuckled despite this threat, and stumbled to the door as the train lurched over the tracks.

"I'm off to the dinner trolley, they'll have desserts by this time. Do you want anything?"

Dmitri glanced off into the fading sunlight just beyond the numerous bare trees. After a short moment of debate he turned back to the papers.

"Some cake, perhaps. Oh, and take your passport with you, just in case,"

"Vatrushka, syrniki?" Vlad took the papers from Dmitri's outstretched hand as he opened the door and stood in the frame, waiting for his answer.

"Whichever."

Vlad gave a general nod in Anya's direction, "Anything for the Duchess?"

"No." Dmitri said deliberately, his eyes darkening as he scrunched his shoulders down in annoyance, furrowing his brow as he pretended to extensively read the pages of his passport. Vlad chuckled, and Dmitri's face flushed a shade of red in frustration, but before he could reply Vlad had slid the door shut and was making his way down the hallway of the coach to where the small kitchen was. It's not that he was particularly very hungry at the moment, he just wanted to stretch his limbs to avoid extra hardships in standing up and moving about when it came time to do so. They'd reach Krakow by tomorrow morning, and if he simply went to sleep on the train without so much as a brief walk he'd be nearly immobile by the time the train whistle woke them up.

But it wasn't like him to pass up a finely cooked pastry, either.

Giving his passport a once-over as he walked down the hall, he smiled to himself as he continued to think about the two younger people on the trip. _Attraction, ridiculous._ Indeed. They hated each other so much that they bickered and bantered like a married couple. Vlad had a feeling that one way or another somebody would realize that by the end of this journey that they were head over heels in twitterpation. Of course Vlad wasn't a psychic, for all he knew they truly hated each other and would claw each other's eyes out by the time they reached Germany. And it would almost be better that way too; though he adored the spirited girl and did wish the best for her despite them using her to get the empress's money, it was best to not become too attached to her. That wouldn't be such a problem for Vlad, but for Dmitri, if it really came to that, might have some issues.

But that would be the best case scenario in a sappy love story. It was most likely that everyone would remain neutral towards one another, start to finish. Vlad licked his thumb and cleared a smudge off of the edge of the paper, moving to the side of the car to pass a couple huddled together. He paused as their conversation caught his ear.

"Last month, the traveling papers were blue, but now they are red...," the man observed in a somewhat exasperated manner. Vlad looked from their papers to his, then back to theirs. While his printing was in perfectly forged royal blue ink, theirs was in official bright red. Red ink!

Vlad gasped in terror, and looked ahead. There was the conductor, dressed in what only now appeared to be a highly militaristic uniform, and there he was going down the aisle one by one asking each person for their papers, as they had just crossed the Polish border. Vlad panicked and gave an abrupt about-face, his wide frame knocking some people into the thin doors. He tried to breathe out an apology but failed, only hearing the irked woman give a comment about his rudeness as he retreated to the back of the car. Perhaps it was for the better, then the conductor couldn't hear his voice and use it as an identification device. It didn't seem to matter anymore, things were coming as a blur to him.

Sliding the door open and squeezing himself inside, he panted and adjusted his hat. Dmitri looked up with a somewhat surprised expression, eyebrows raised. Vlad gulped even though his throat had quickly become dry from terror.

"That's what I hate about this government...," Vlad murmured nervously, gesturing at the passport pages "Everything's in _red."_

"_Red?"_ Dmitri asked in shock, standing up to stare at the blue ink as if it could magically change to the bastard color of the Bolsheviks by sheer willpower.

Vlad shut the passport and held it in his thick trembling fingers, whispering frantically, "I propose we move to the baggage car, _quickly_!"

"_I_ propose we get off this train!" Dmitri declared as he and Vlad began taking suitcases and bags off of the top shelves. Pooka had woken up at some point and was barking madly, racing about Anya's sleeping form and shrieking at the window in anger. Dmitri instantly felt the urge to toss the dog out into the passing snows just so the stupid mutt wouldn't give away their presence, but leaned down to wake Anya instead as Vlad poked his head out, watching and waiting for an opportunity to move without notice. The dumb pooch had been frightened by something outside and was whimpering into silence now anyways. He had probably seen a bat or something.

"Hey...," Dmitri shook her gently. Vlad gave a urgent little hiss as a signal to go and to go now, and Dmitri nodded him onwards. Gathering as many bags as he could, Vlad slipped out. Dmitri watched as he left, turning his eyes back to Anya just in time to see the her hand reach out from the folds of her jacket and smash his nose square into his face with a very loud, almost sickening _smack!_

Pain rocketed from his nose to his forehead, blaring in his mind as stars danced in front of his closed eyes on a red background. Crying out as he fell backwards onto the seat, he cupped his nose and crossed his eyes, struggling to see if his nose was still there. He swore that if he was bleeding he'd make sure that...well...that she'd never forget it! Or something. It hurt too much to think, anyways.

"Oh, _sorry_, I thought you were someone els—," Anya began as she sat up, but when she looked across to see Dmitri flinching and wincing as he delicately touched his nose (which she swore was even more crooked now than before) her apologetic tone changed immediately, "Oh, it's you! Well, that's okay then."

Dmitri couldn't even give her a half-hearted glare. His face now felt like one great bruise, and to make matters worse his nose was swelling up, blocking the bottom half of his vision with rosy, irritated skin. Piling the rest of the suitcases under his arms and forcing himself not to wince again lest he appear weak in front of Anya, he turned to her, accidentally forgetting what had just happened by lending her a chivalrous hand to help her up.

"C'mon, we gotta go!" he urged. He felt the insides of his nostrils begin to swell and close, and though he couldn't feel any blood dripping down he felt mucus dribble down the back of his throat, no doubt knocked back there from the force of Anya's palm. Swallowing though it sickened him, he began to leave the cabin as Anya gathered up Pooka along with her few belongings.

"Where are we going?" she asked with a yawn. Dmitri directly ignored her as he stumbled out into the hall, gingerly rubbing his face. Pain throbbed all over, and he felt his sinuses begin to collapse.

"I think you _broke my nose!_" he wailed accusingly for an answer as he bumbled after Vlad to the baggage car. His ears joined the rosy color of his nose, though more in anger than in pain as he heard Anya's very loud whisper behind him as she shouldered her bag.

"Men are such _babies_."

Babies? _Babies?_ Yeah, and women weren't. They were the frailer sex anyways! If their positions had been switched Dmitri would have made damn sure that he had broken her nose if she tried to wake him. And they'll see who's the baby when faced with a phalanx of Red soldiers marching in their direction. If she had known that that imagery could be what they were about to face in the next twenty-four hours then maybe she'd change her attitude a little bit. Men are _not_ babies.

He muffled another cry as his finger slipped and jabbed the bridge between his cheeks.

Well, okay. Maybe men act just a _smidgen_ like babies. But to be fair, it felt like she had broken it, and fairly well, too.

"Suck it up." Anya said unsympathetically as they transferred from one car to the next. Dmitri growled various cuss words at her under the noise of the train as they stepped into the baggage car. Just wait. Let him find a good-sized spider and then he'll show her who's the baby.

Dmitri couldn't believe it, but he was desperately praying that Anya absolutely hated spiders.


	2. Orange

_Fire reminds me of the good old days where I would play classic Sonic games on a tiny old TV on the ground situated right in front of the wood stove. Regardless of the soot, the room (and of course the TV) always had an orange tint to it whenever I would sit there and play. That's usually the first thing I think of when I hear the word orange. It's not particularly what I wrote in the story, but the element of fire is there._

_What do you think of?_

_

* * *

_

**Orange**

It was on _fire_. He swore it was.

The way the sunset captured each individual strand of her hair, the way her hair moved in waves so delicate and yet so fierce that it created a firestorm streaking from her scalp, deterred only by the blue ribbon flowing perfectly along with her. It was so different than before. He had seen her hair in the late sunlight, but never like this. Before, her hair was snarled and knotted, pulled up in a rough ponytail to save the time of brushing it each day. It was so thick and dirty that he swore that small animals could have nested in it, her hair was so gnarled. Her attempts to wash it were always just short of futile; she could never unfurl it enough to clean it thoroughly. But something had been transformed in the amount of time she had. Her gritty rusty hair had lost everything that he had previously associated with it, flaring now in the sun as if it was born to be alight, born to be a living flame with each twirl of their clumsy little waltz. It warmed him just to stare endlessly at it.

And he _was_. Oh god, he could not take his eyes off of her. Even when he tried to give a sideways glance to Vlad and Pooka, even when he tried to gaze out to the gentle waves of the ocean, even when he tried to catch the smokestacks in his peripheral vision, he could not let his eyes stray farther than where she was. Always he was staring at her, whether it was her blazing hair, the vibrant folds of her blue dress, or the icy pools that made for her eyes. How could he even keep up the waltz if he was paying so much attention to her and not how he was dancing? His feet glided across the smooth deck, stepping on clouds, not other feet as would be usual for him. He didn't believe in magic until today.

How could such a combination exist? Her hair was such a pyre, and her eyes were such a shade of deep wintry blue that he would at one time have believed that the existence of such a precious combination was pure fairy tale. And even with her personality, she was such a fiery, passionate person that she could warm a heart to infinity with her courageous words, yet she could turn right around and unleash the harshest statements; making it so that even the most experienced Siberians would fear her inhospitable blizzards. Fire and ice just couldn't exist with each other, how could such a thing be so true in nature, so real that he could feel her soft hands resting within his, trusting him to dance her in the right direction.

Trusting _him_, such a drab, beaten little layman with dull brown locks, dark, flat eyes, and a crooked nose. Trusting him to lead her across the continent to find her family (find the money), trusting him to help her recall her past (the duchess's past), trusting him to get her out of any obstacle they encounter (weasel them out of anything illegal), trusting him to lead her in this dance (to lead her off into the orange sunsets of forever).

She spoke, her voice distant like a breeze. He replied, unaware of who they were, unaware of anything but the fire and the ice before them. And that fire and ice forced him to be aware, and he spoke her name. Such a funny little fairy tale princess. Once caked in earth and bedraggled by wind, now blazing with fire and moving with the water. The epitome of life itself. If he could just touch her lips, feel the fire course through her skin to his, have his veins burn hot coals, have the icy water rinse his throat to numb his pain, yes, he would be happy. He, as a man, would be happy.

Something brought him back. He was not just a man. His name was Dmitri. Hers was Anya, sometimes Anastasia. He was on the deck of the _Tasha_, trekking onwards to France. He was there, just pausing after a waltz with her, the music of Vlad's humming in the suddenly very near background. Pooka had barked, that's what had brought him back from looking at the fairy tale. He looked at her, struggled to see past the fairy tale back to the scrawny orphan from the streets, back to the key item of their con. Oh, he mustn't get involved. For one, it would skew everything he and Vlad had worked for in this con. And for another, he would dull the fire and soil the water, he and his dry peasantry.

Why was he referring to himself as a peasant? She had been worse off than him. She was just an orphan rat from outside of the city. Anya was not a royal, even if she was pretending to be.

_But she fit the criteria_ _so well_.

He left her standing on the deck, her hair still burning wildly in the fading sunlight. She definitely was as dangerous as fire could be, as deadly as ice threatened to uphold. To protect himself and Vlad, to save the con, he'd have to never look at her again. Fire and ice should melt when they meet, and they did, and that's why Anya existed there in all of her impossibilities.

She had melted him.


	3. Yellow

_Yellow is actually one of my least favorite colors. I acknowledge its presence and importance as a color, as well as the symbolism it holds, but pure, bright yellow isn't that attractive of a color to me. Perhaps this comes from my experience with paints, perhaps it's just one of my least favorite colors. You may not see that from this story, but in other drafts I have in mind for yellow in dealing with other stories, well, it's a fairly different outcome. As much as I dislike yellow, I feel I kind of fail at writing cute things, so I guess...this one is just a big poop for me or something. Regardless I thought of sun showers, which is something I feel just doesn't happen enough._

_Also I envision this to be before Dmitri gets thrown from the horse into the mud puddle. So. Tough luck, guy._

* * *

**Yellow**

It was just their luck. To avoid bandits they had chosen to walk on a quiet forest road as opposed to hitch-hiking along the more-traveled paths. It was a beautiful day to walk, and there were various signs for family-owned inns, all of them appearing cheerful in the bright sunlight. Even the constant bantered between Dmitri and Anya were light-hearted, practically music to Vlad's weary ears.

But then after their midday meal clouds rolled in, and it started to rain. Pour, even, and soon they were huddled miserably underneath a big tree, waiting the storm out. Even Pooka seemed dismayed by the change of weather, mostly because absolutely nobody was patient enough to deal with the awful scent of a wet muddy dog. The struggling puppy flailed valiantly against Vlad's arms, eventually giving up with an unhappy sigh and a lick of the nose.

The rain changed in a bipolar manner; at one minute being a fine sprinkle, the next becoming a stormy torrent. But despite all of their waiting it never stopped. Finally, over an hour later the relentless rain waned down to just several fat drops from the sky. Anya poked her head curiously out from underneath the great tree as the sky brightened and cleared. Dmitri bitterly and sarcastically cautioned her against bolts of lightning, but she seemed to not hear him as her eyes reached ever skyward, rain from the leaves above falling onto and gliding down her face.

"The sun's coming out," She announced, her voice somewhat distant.

"Then why is it still raining?" Dmitri complained as Vlad caught Pooka before he scrambled away. Anya didn't answer, only inched closer to the edge of the shadow of the tree. Dmitri warned her that she was going to get wet, but again she didn't seem to hear. It wasn't long until the sun was shining fiercely, yet despite this the dark clouds surrounding it still rained. The two men stared up at the anomaly in small wonder, Dmitri more disgusted than his older companion.

Anya turned away from the sky slowly, meeting their gazes. Some far away spark was in her eyes, a sort of youthful light that was precious in its vitality. A smile stretched across her face, and she scooped Pooka up from Vlad's arms and twirled out into the open. Dmitri started in surprise, and moved as if to pull her back underneath the relative dryness of the tree, but Vlad's arm steadied him. The young man looked back to him in protest, mouth gaping open in confusion. Vlad could say nothing to explain it, but simply let his hand drop. He knew that Dmitri would not make another move to bring her back after that, along with the knowledge that it was fruitless to try and explain such a care-free attraction to wonder to someone who had had such wonder stolen from him as a child.

From underneath the darkened shadow of the tree they watched as Anya danced, a merry melody that they couldn't hear guiding her steps across the dirt and stones, over the roots and between the interlocking branches. Soon her hair shone as the rain soaked through, and when she let Pooka down to run about the damp forest floor she turned her face to the sun and the rain, smiling brilliantly as the water droplets traced her skin. Dmitri was in awe at her character, at how she embraced something that held no significance whatsoever. He was gawking so much that he almost didn't realize that she had stopped and was staring at him, still smiling. When she grabbed him by the wrist he sputtered as she pulled him out into the open, and when she began to throw him about in a sloppy waltz he only then was able to barely say words to her.

"No—wait, Anya, I _really_ can't dan—," Anya pulled him around in a wide circle and he cried in dismay as his feet twisted and stumbled over each other, ducking to avoid an overhanging branch. She was laughing merrily, not in the slightest bit of spite, and soon he heard Vlad's deep laughter join hers, and as the world around him swirled into a yellow blur from the strength of the sun reflecting off of the rain drops spattering about him he only wished for him to not get injured.

He tripped over a root and stuttered out a scream before Anya caught him, righting him so he was standing again and, thankfully, no longer dancing. She laughed as she examined his expression of panic and fear.

"Aw, come on Dmitri! Have a little fun!"

"That was _not_ fun," Dmitri panted. Part of him was lying when he said that.

Anya twisted her mouth and as her blue eyes flashed he feared that she would swing him around unexpectedly again, but instead she smiled and nodded, and gave a perfect little bow just as they had taught her to do. Having been dismissed, Dmitri retreated quickly back to the safety of the big tree, head lowered in embarrassment. Anya followed close behind, grasping Vlad's hands and leading him out. Vlad, laughing, joined her in an improvised dance where neither one really knew what the other was doing. They simply were enjoying the smells, sights, sounds, and feelings of the atmosphere, from each shining drop of honey from the clouds above to the soft shadows of the leaves silhouetted by the joyous sun. They laughed and forgot who they were, for they didn't need names or identities or pasts here. All was one under the sun shower.

Dmitri watched from the secluded shade of the tree. Somehow he didn't really noticed, but he was starving with envy. He knew that there was something intangible that they had that he did not understand nor possess. Yet for just a moment he had felt something as Anya was wildly swinging him around to and fro. Some sort of candle flickered back to life inside of him for just a moment, and during that one moment he had a sort of liberation happen within him. But for the life of him he could not pinpoint it; he understood nothing. He couldn't tell what had triggered it, why he had felt that way, and if it was that feeling that was making his companions skip about so festively on their toes. Sighing, he leaned up against the tree.

Pooka suddenly pranced into his vision from behind. The little dog had sniffed around their suitcases, and was about to rejoin Anya and Vlad. Dmitri watched, stupefied for a moment before he burst forth in pursuit of the mutt, because as he watched he realized that the mongrel was holding _his hat_ in its filthy little jaws.

Suddenly they were in between Vlad and Anya, interrupting them completely. Dmitri was shouting in anger and frustration as the little dog, interpreting it as a game, hopped about, uncaring about Dmitri's hat dragging in the mud. Stumbling and slipping, Dmitri fell onto the muddy forest floor as he gave a futile leap to catch Pooka. Undeterred even by this, he scowled and scrabbled for the mutt that was always just beyond his grasp. Howling in rage as he vaguely heard Anya and Vlad's voice in the background, he chased Pooka around in tight, impossible circles that the four-legged puppy could easily handle while Dmitri kept slipping and nearly falling with his clumsiness. All the while he watched in dismay as his hat slowly turned from gray to brown, decorated with many wet dead leaves. How he was going to clean it without staining it he didn't know.

Finally, Anya's skinny arms caught Pooka by his round haunches, and she raised him up. Dmitri growled and cursed, straightening up as she coaxed his hat out from Pooka's jaws. Smiling, she handed his hat to him.

"Here, since you wanted it so much." she offered. Dmitri looked at it, watched as the sun glinted off of the brown water that dripped from the brim, looked at the dirt and the dead leaves stuck to the massive stain that marred most of the fabric. It looked absolutely ugly, a far cry from the sharpness that it had once been. He had gotten that hat through good luck, and he had loved it ever since. It was a perfect fit, and was practical in every way, especially by making him look professional and unassuming at the same time out on the streets. Frowning, he waved it away.

"No, nevermind. Not anymore."

Anya raised her eyebrows skeptically, and placed the hat on his head without brushing any of the debris off. Dmitri struggled away from her, but stopped to glare as she spoke.

"Oh come on, it...It makes you look nice," Her smile turned wry, "Besides, it matches with your outfit now."

Dmitri dropped his mouth open, then looked down. Dirt, grime, and filthy water stained his clothes, leaving absolutely no mercy for him. Groaning inwardly, upset, he didn't even try to brush anything off. His insides felt scrambled, but when Anya laughed happily he involuntarily buried his sickened emotions. Her laughter brought him to a smile—allbeit a very dry and unhappy one—and he began to pick the dead leaves off of his hat, throwing them at Pooka as punishment.

"Shall we continue? The rain has stopped and we've only a few hours until sunset," Vlad suggested happily, placing his own (dry and clean) hat on his head. Anya and Dmitri agreed, gathering up their suitcases as they continued to walk down the sheltered path underneath the yellow sun filtered by glittering leaves.


	4. Green

_Green...It never meant jealousy or envy to me...it always symbolized the forests that I'd spend all of my days in during the spring and summer...I could never live in a desert or the plains or anywhere where there wasn't a forest of green trees. I traveled through the Czech Republic and Slovakia this summer. Driving through Slovakia was like driving through a fantastical dream of mine come true...I can't quite describe it better than that..._

_But maybe Dmitri can for you._

* * *

**Green**

The hills of eastern Czechoslovakia pulled Dmitri away from reality. Their long journey through Poland took them out of winter and into spring, melting the snow and turning the world into a lush green, the grass blanketing every space that wasn't already taken over by lively pine trees. Breezes drifted across the hills they traveled across, caressing their hair and weary cheeks. It had been a day since Anya had agreed to accept their lessons to become the Grand Duchess, and was fairly content enough to not seethe at him anymore, as she had been doing ever since he tried to weasel his way into keeping her with them despite the revelation of their plans.

But that didn't matter to him at the moment.

They were in between villages, hopeful to find a friendly automobile that would be willing to drive them all the way to Prague. That was a far stretch of course since they had just crossed the country borders, but with the way they were living before they had learned that everything was possible.

Resting in a valley, Vlad and Anya began to cook a quick lunch over a small fire. Dmitri had wandered up to the top of the nearest hill and had laid down in the cushion of the grass, staring up at the white clouds running across the blue skies.

He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, inhaling the fresh air. Something about here was different than where he was from. There was a breeze that calmed rather than tensed, a fresh scent that cleaned rather than clogged, an atmosphere that welcomed him rather than rejected him. He felt himself sink deeper into the emerald blades of grass, breathing in and out and feeling every inch of him swell with life as his chest rose and fell. There was something so different about here, so green and full of life, so free from the steel cages in the Soviet Union. He had never even set foot outside of St. Petersburg before, never even dreamed that he would actually escape his beloved Russia that he loathed so much. Even more a minute, even for a second, he never believed that air from another country, a free country, would be seeping deep into his lungs.

For the first time in a long time, Dmitri dreamed. He reached out into the intangible world just beyond reality, just lying there underneath the loving sun.

"_Are you dead, _Dmitri? Lunch is ready!" Anya called. He opened his eyes. Yes, he heard her. And it wasn't that he didn't care, and it wasn't that it was because Anya had said it, but he didn't move. Not responding, replying, or giving them any possible acknowledgment of his existence, he simply continued to lay there, gazing sadly at the clouds. Vlad was murmuring lowly to Anya at the base of the hill, deterring her from retrieving him, he figured.

Vlad knew. He must have known, because he knew everything about Dmitri—even more than Dmitri knew about himself. Dmitri breathed again, sinking down into the grass's arms and falling into a metaphorical sleep underneath their green protection.

How could he ever love anything more than this freedom he so embraced at this moment?


	5. Blue

_Sometimes I feel like I underappreciate blue...a lot, actually. I don't know, my favorite colors are various shades of red and purple along with shades of green. And black, but does that even count?_

_Crap this wasn't supposed to be a super cute story. Just a kind of "Aww, smiles." instead of "d'aww! How ADORABLE!"_

* * *

**Blue**

If she closed her eyes, she was on the edge of the deck again.

Her foot was pointed and poised, just as a ballet dancer should have her foot. Not that she knew any ballet, but the dream that was already fading from her thoughts seemed to teach her a type of deathly ballet dance that she wouldn't forget even if the nightmare faded from her memory. And if she kept her eyes closed, she would leap out into the dark blue sea, plunge into its icy, stormy depths. And she would struggle for a moment, flailing for the steel safety of the ship above, but then she would accept her fate with a sick sort of mind that had a voice that she swore wasn't her own. The voice was harsh, old, dusty as if its been dead and unused for years.

Anya opened her eyes with a start. The room was the way it was supposed to be, washed in blue moonlight from the window. They were gliding over smooth ocean waters—no more stormy seas in the distance. And yet her eyes, shining into a greater cerulean in the light, frantically roved about the room as though she had unexpectedly awoken in a prison camp.

Everything was as they should be. Vlad snored gently above her, Pooka had finally calmed down and was curled about her ankles and joined Vlad in snoring, and Dmitri had remade his fake bed, sleeping with his damp back to her. His wet clothes gleamed softly in the moonbeams, giving detail to his rising and falling breaths. They were rhythmic; he had easily overcome the drama of what was probably over an hour ago now and was fast asleep on the floor of the ship.

She found it odd. He had forced her to change into her old orphan's clothes because they were dry and warm, while he did not bother to change out of anything but his trousers, hanging them up to drip-dry for tomorrow. He was by no means half-naked, he had put a pair of long-johns on, but the wet shirt he kept.

Anya blinked as she stared at him. Then blinked again. Maybe this time she could close her eyes and sleep.

Deep dark blue depths where the unknown creatures of the sea devoured her as she drowned. She opened her eyes again with a small cry, struggling to muffle her heavy breaths.

"It's been over an hour. Go to sleep, Anya." Dmitri muttered.

"I...," Anya gasped quietly, "I _can't_." Apparently he wasn't as asleep as she initially thought.

"No excuse," he retorted as he rolled over onto his back, rubbing his eyes, "You should be sleeping like a baby. Oh wait—," He gazed up at the ceiling as he interrupted himself, "Only _men_ are babies."

"Right," Anya replied, pushing some force into her voice, "So why aren't _you_ sleeping like one?"

Dmitri stared at her. They could barely make out each other's faces in the dim light.

"I don't have to answer that."

"Uh-huh." She tried her hardest to make her voice sound casual, sharp like hers normally was, "So you've been awake this entire time?"

"Yeah. And I've been counting every time you've almost screamed."

Anya's face flushed red in the moonlight. She thanked god that Dmitri couldn't see.

"How many times?"

"Almost twenty."

"Why would you even _do_ that?" Anya hissed. Dmitri gained a horrible grin as he replied.

"Blackmail. Just in case. You never know, right?"

"You slimy prig!" Anya said behind her laughter, throwing a pillow that hit Dmitri in his devilish smile. Taking the pillow and putting it behind his head, he announced that it was now his, to the dismay and almost giggling refusals of Anya.

"Now children," Vlad murmured groggily. Both Anya and Dmitri stopped immediately, having not been aware that Vlad's snores had stopped almost halfway during their conversation, "No fights now, you'll lose an eye and we don't have the money for a hospital." Vlad turned over in his bed, grumbling and muttering himself back to sleep. Dmitri looked to Anya and exchanged little smiles before tossing her pillow back to her. Anya caught it and watched as he turned his back to her again. Resting her head on her pillow, she smelled the soft rain mixed with the salt of the ocean and his cheap cologne from the small damp spot the back of his head left on the pillowcase. She closed her eyes.

The vast blue stormy ocean was before her again, but when she stepped out as her eyes remained closed, she walked rather than sank.

Opening her eyes, she was greeted by the morning sun and the ports of France.


	6. Indigo

_This actually was the first story I wrote for this. I'm a little tentative at how the personalities turned out, but I created a loophole for myself and that is vodka. It wasn't an intentional loophole though and I don't personally think that Dmitri really acts all bitter and crap when drunk. (not that he was legitimately drunk though) Sigh. Back to the drawing board. Let's just say that this is part of the very beginning of their journey and nothing has developed yet. (even though it really isn't the beginning of their journey)_

_OH WELL. Make of this what you will!_

_

* * *

_

**Indigo**

They were going to take a bus to Germany instead of walking, this much was true. But the train was supposed to take them all the way to Prague, so as it turns out they had to at least walk to Czechoslovakia. Complications in Krakow due to their late arrival by the fault of combusting steam engines had led them to brave the countrysides on foot. In all honesty it wouldn't have been so bad if they didn't have the bags to look after, and out of the three of them only two carried the suitcases. Really, there was courtesy, and then there was taking advantage of very strained chivalry. Yes, he and Vlad were stronger than Anya, and at least Anya gave her sympathies to Vlad, but she could've shared the load a little. Or at least given her sympathies to him as well. Why did Vlad have to get all the love? Dmitri was charming and handsome enough.

Or maybe he was mistaking 'charm' for 'snarkiness', but either way, he felt very indignant and disgruntled about the whole idea. He'd be five steps behind them, sneering as Vlad and Anya chatted away merrily, Pooka running in circles just ahead of them.

Then again, it's not like he wanted to actually _talk_ to Anya, he just believed that he was severely uncredited for his efforts.

Dmitri leaned back in front of the fire they had built just off of the road and stared up at the stars. Tomorrow they'd reach Prague by mid-afternoon, and from then on they didn't have to rely on the untrustworthy tactic of hitch-hiking, given that there was still a bus leading up to northern Germany. He had heard that Germany was in a horrible state—worse than the Soviet Union, even, but hopefully the trip through the country would be without any troubles.

Vlad snored quietly off to the side. To celebrate them nearing the end of their long journey on foot, they had each shared a shot of vodka. Vlad of course was the best at holding his liquor, and they only had a simple shot, but to Dmitri every time Vlad drank his snores seemed to be louder and deeper. He later blamed the noise from Vlad's snores the reason why Anya was able to sneak up to him, nearly startling him out of his skin when she spoke.

"Hey, Dmitri," her breath had a faint stench of lingering vodka in it, "What's Prague like?"

Dmitri shrugged her hand away from his shoulder and furrowed his brow to hide his surprise at her sudden appearance. From the flickering glow he could see that she was smiling, whether from the drunkenness (she couldn't hold a drink well, probably because it was the first raw vodka she had ever consumed) or from an upcoming insult she had prepared for him.

"You asked this about Krakow too. How would I know? I've never _been_ there,"

"Oh," Anya said. Her voice wasn't slurred, but her mind wasn't firing on all cylinders either, "Well, how would _I_ know? _I'm_ not _you_."

"Thank god for that," Dmitri murmured sourly. He pulled an arm over his eyes. A headache was developing, and he was positive that it wasn't because of the alcohol.

"Now that I think about it, you're right." Anya mused in response, twisting her mouth. Pooka romped into the glow of the fire without warning and scampered over to Anya, seemingly deliberately scrambling across Dmitri's stomach in the most unceremonious fashion possible. Dmitri gave a cry of surprise and disgust as the dogs damp, dirty little paws pounded onto his belly with more weight and power than he should've had. Scowling and turning away from Anya and the dog, he scolded her soundly, to which Anya just laughed somewhat maliciously. Petting the pooch as a reward, she babied the puppy until he fell asleep, content in her scrawny arms. The two were quiet for a while, Dmitri eventually rolling onto his back again to gaze at the stars. He didn't completely ignore Anya's presence with him, but he didn't precisely acknowledge it either. He figured that she was doing the same or at least something similar, whether it be stargazing or busying herself with preening Pooka's impossible head fur. Just as he felt the corners of his eyes begin to ache he wondered if he shouldn't go to sleep when Anya broke the silence again.

"Wanna share a bedtime story?"

"_What_? You're drunk. Go to sleep." Dmitri shot down immediately. Anya smirked in spite of him, and ignored his sharp retort.

"I am _not_ drunk," Anya proclaimed.

"How would you know?" he asked sarcastically, about to pull another verbal punch at her but was interrupted as she gave her proof.

"The woman who ran the orphanage gave us vodka and water when we were sick. More shots to those who were the sickest, because then it'd shut them up eventually. Needless to say I _know_ what being drunk is like."

Dmitri snorted, giving a wry smile at her story. He bade her a hasty good night, but she caught him by the shoulder as he was turning the other way, her nails digging into his skin.

"No you don't. Not fair. Just tell me something about Anastasia. You know something about that, right? _It's your business to know._"

"How about not," Dmitri grunted, feeling tired and grouchy. He had been pounced upon not once, but twice, and the second time had left little paw prints across his shirt, and it did not leave him in a very good or talkative mood.

"You said you were going to teach me _everything_ about being Anastasia," she pointed out cockily.

"Not in the middle of the night I'm not," Dmitri replied, struggling to wrench his shoulder free from her grasp, "Let me go."

"No," her eyes flared, "Tell me a story."

Violently Dmitri turned his body so he was facing her, making sure to drench his voice with as much annoyance as possible, "What, you want a story? Fine. _Fine_. But it's not going to be about Anastasia."

"But—,"

"Why do you _need_ a story anyways?" Dmitri mocked, trying to prolong this as he didn't actually know any good stories by memory. Anya stared at him, emotionless. Would she tell him that the night before she had encountered a frightful dream, where millions of faces danced about her, faces that she knew but had never met before? Would she tell him that the same haunting melody that had been playing endlessly in her head stretched across her mindscape every time she closed her eyes, taunting her into an abyss of terror and thoughtlessness, the ultimate unknown reaches of her mind? Would she tell him that she was afraid to sleep, afraid to be caught in the circus of faces that laughed at her as she struggled to piece everything together?

No, no she would never. That would seem weak. Stupid. Daft. The last thing she wanted to do was let her guard down while she was traveling with two unfamiliar men. True, Vlad was pleasant and sweet in a fatherly way, and Dmitri was terribly sarcastic and unlikable yet somehow decent through it all, and she did feel safe with them but...anything could happen. It wasn't so much that she didn't want to seem weak at all to everyone, she just didn't want to seem like a laughable piece of woman to them, _especially_ to Dmitri. Losing a battle like that would be major, and would max out Dmitri's score on Vlad's little sheet of tallies.

Ha, and god forbid she lose that.

Anya buried her fingers in Pooka's fur as she stared.

"Whatever," Dmitri gave in, dropping his gaze away from her. She blinked. Had he been staring straight at her the entire time?

He cleared his throat, "Once upon a time there was a boy who was abandoned after his entire family was killed. Alone in his house, he went to Baba Yaga for help and advice. Baba Yaga gave him a small, gold little jewelry box and told him to brave the winter snows. He would find what he wanted and dreamed for if he kept the little box safe. So the boy went out into the blizzard, only to come to a cruel orphanage. He had many opportunities to save his skin from the punishments and beatings if he showed the jewelry box, but he did not. Soon he left the orphanage by himself by the time the next blizzard came. He had many opportunities to save himself from the ice and snow if he showed the jewelry box to the houses of the many people, but he did not. He then collapsed at the door of a man who took him in. The man nursed him back to better health and they were living happily together in no time, the man replacing his father. But soon they couldn't live as well as they had been previously, for they could not provide for themselves. Here he had many opportunities to save them from the starvation and humiliation by showing the jewelry box to be pawned, but he did not. Then, one day, when the boy was looking at the jewelry box, the man saw, and attempted to steal the box away from him. The boy fought for the box and cried for Baba Yaga to help him. The man eventually let go of the box and the two reached a mutual agreement. Later that night the boy snuck out to see Baba Yaga again, but she wasn't anywhere to be found. He felt that he had betrayed her, and that he would never find what he was dreaming for. He never looked at the jewelry box again and it proceeded to gather dust in the corner as he left it behind forever."

Dmitri uneasily coughed as he finished, "There, happy now?"

Anya was quiet, responding in a wide-eyed whisper, "That was true."

Dmitri scoffed.

"No it wasn't."

"Yes it was."

"Don't tell me you _believe_ the stories of the Baba Yaga."

"I do—I don't, I—," Anya struggled with her replies, "No, it's just, I hadn't heard that one before. And just, the way you told it—,"

"What _about_ the way I told it?" Dmitri snarled, making her jump in surprise, "Was it not to your liking? Am I not _good enough_ for you, Your Highness?" His senses were flaring on red hot flames, fueled by the pain of his past memories that he had foolishly dug up in the form of a bedtime story. He should've thought that through better and should've known that all of his old insecurities would resurface with even just a remote acknowledgment of his childhood. Even worse, though she had no idea of the truth she suspected, and through this trouble Dmitri's hotheadedness exploded in his defense. He told himself that it was justified—it was just Anya he was talking to, just an orphan off of the streets that only looked a lot like the lost duchess.

"No!" Anya gasped quietly in shock, "No, it's not that."

"Go to sleep then. I told you a bedtime story. Good night." He stated flatly, turning away from her for the final time with a dismissive sniff and a sharp twist of the shoulder, freeing it from her hand. Anya stared quietly at his back for a while, the usual smooth green of his shirt changed to a dull orange in the flickering light of the flames. Pieces of dead grass and leaves stuck to the fabric, shuddering as his forced breaths made his chest sharply rise and fall. Part of her felt responsible for Dmitri's sudden anger, though not in the way she expected to. Something inexplicable and deep within her put her shame to the front of her mind, aching to give sympathies for something that happened long before she met him.

"I'm sorry, Dmitri," she whispered sincerely after a while. Dmitri grunted, still keeping his annoyance in his response.

"For what, hating the story?"

"I think you know." She said confidently but softly, crumbling his brick wall of anger. Nothing but the fire crackled and snapped, the sparks flying high as they dreamed to reach the indigo blankets of the far off sky, dreamed to join the stars. Anya was distracted by them as the waltzing figures danced upwards towards their goal. Somehow she knew the story was true in more ways than she could ever imagine, and as the indigo skies came down to meet her eyelids she wondered about what it was the boy in the story dreamed so fiercely about that made him never want to let go of the jewelry box until he was sure his wish wouldn't be granted. As she closed her eyes a smile fell across her face as Dmitri, sighing a deep, calming sigh, gave a shaky apology disguised as two simple, soft words.

"Good night."


	7. Purple

_Purple is one of my favorite colors...it just encompasses a lot of personality to me. (and it has nothing to do with it being my school colors either) However I'm not a big fan of lilac, lavender, or grayish light type purples. Deep, rich, royal purples are what I love...and they're so hard to find in clothing here in the States. I'm serious you guys it's almost infuriating. This is why I make my own skirts!_

_(How do I update so fast? I don't write these in order. That's how.)_

* * *

**Purple**

"Send me a sign!" She called out into the gray skies, "A...hint! _Anything_!"

Plopping down onto the snowbank in front of the two signs, Anya slapped her chin into the heel of her palm, furrowing her brow in both frustration and contemplation. Of all the impossible decisions in the world, how could she make this one? Down one road her future was secure. She was sure to have a job and a life down at the fish factory, working the markets until the sun set, allowing her to sleep until dawn the next day. Down the other...she didn't know. Was she afraid of the unknown? A little. She didn't like jumping into things unless it was her last resort. But the unknown didn't frighten her.

Okay. Maybe it did. But that was half the fun.

Something shifted in her pocket, but she ignored it until a raggedy little gray puppy leaped out from behind her in the snow bank with her purple scarf in its jaws.

"Hey!" She called out in surprise, repeating herself with a dry laugh as she reached her arm out to grab the scarf. The puppy pranced just out of her reach, running in a circle that caused the scarf to make tracks in the snow that encompassed the dog's paw prints. Anya sighed, giving the pooch a wry smile.

"I don't have time to play right now, okay?" The dog frolicked about her, "I'm waiting for a sign."

Their eyes met, and in one swift realization Anya saw exactly what the dog wanted to do, and knew that the dog was overwhelmingly willing to do it. In that instant she stood up and snatched one tail of her scarf before the fire in the dog's eyes would lead the puppy off into the wilderness with her scarf still clamped in its teeth. Setting a fire of her own in her eyes, Anya tugged on her scarf.

"Give that back—," the dog danced about as if this was a game, "Would you just—_gimmie that back!_" Growling happily, it ran laps around Anya, tying the scarf tight around her skinny legs before tearing away, causing the orphaned girl to trip and fall face first into the snow bank as the dog hopped away merrily, scarf still in tow. Pulling her face from the snow, Anya spat out the slush that was melting in her mouth and readjusted her hat. The dog was standing just a short distance away down the road to St. Petersburg, the purple scarf crumpled around it as it barked and wagged its tail at her. Pushing herself up and away from the ground despite the biting cold of the snow on her exposed fingertips, Anya brought her legs underneath her as she smirked skeptically.

"Oh, great. A _dog_ wants me to go to St. Petersburg." She cocked her head at the dog and narrowed her eyes, wondering just what type of a pooch had the nerve to do that and stay within bopping distance of the original owner of the stolen item.

Then it hit her and she gasped. The dog gave a few more shrill barks as she stood up. Maybe this wasn't exactly what she was expecting, but then again, it was a fork in the road. Either way she went, there would be new things she didn't think she would encounter, right?

"Okay...I can take a hint...,"

She took the end of the scarf and shook the loose snow off, then looked up to the glistening path as a gentle breeze brought glittering snowflakes to her cheeks. Snapping her eyes shut, she gripped the soft purple scarf fiercely.

Did they _really_ send her a hint to walk this direction, down this path, towards an unknown future? Was she _really_ supposed to believe that someone out there was looking out for her, that someone out there was going to look after her, call her family, invite her to be part of a home? She was just one small, scrawny little nobody with no past, half of a present, and only a probable future. There was no possible way she had any connections with anybody else in this world; she was an orphan, lonely and lost.

But still those dreams that she always had, the dreams of a family whose names she once knew. She _had_ to have them somewhere—eight years of her life were shrouded in darkness, only familiar to her in the night when her dreams pulled at her heart strings to pluck out melodies that she had long forgotten. They _existed_. Other orphans were different because they didn't have a clue. But _she_ had a clue, and that clue led her here, to this forked path, to the beginning of an unknown journey that all started with a gray little dog and her purple scarf.

She was an orphan, yes. Lonely and lost. Brave and determined. Scared but willing to fight to find her way. And if she didn't find her way, she was going to _forge_ her way with her spirit and her fire—she was going to _be_ somebody in this world because she knew that's who she had to be, and god help anybody who was going to try and stop her.

She stood up and breathed in the cold air, feeling the dog by her side as she took one step forward towards the beginning, her pulse pounding rapidly in her ears.

_Heart, don't fail me now._


	8. White

_Yes, THIS is what I'm writing these for...these types of stories, the outside of outside stories._

_WARNING: I know this is generally rated T, but I think this chapter deserves a fair warning. It's fairly depressing, and somewhat graphic (okay quite a bit) There is blood, and it's pretty sad that there's blood too. Just...you'll see._

_Anyways, this is my idea of how Dmitri came to work at the palace._

* * *

**White**

A dusting of snow on top of snow had just alighted on the weary city of Petrograd. Nestled away from the grubby fingers of the general public was the Czar's Winter Palace, and it was here that a woman trekked through the snow towards, sweat dripping down her temples to meet her tears. Her belly protruded through her coat, swollen and throbbing with each step she took. Somehow she found her way at the front gates of the palace, and in an act of desperation, she threw herself against the golden bars, screaming into the empty courtyard as her knuckles turned white. Her cries echoed off of the muted snow as she slid to the ground, summoning the gatekeepers, curious but stern guards, and daytime servants that weren't needed in the palace until later. Fingers falling from the golden gate, she collapsed as the servants of the Czar stared at her in wonder.

She was a young woman, and would've been attractive had her face not been contorted in pain and streaked with tears. Dressed in poor rags, her belly stretched them to the limits of their endurance. Her petty frock was splattered with red stains around the inside of her thighs. Writhing in the snow, she wailed and screamed at the staring faces that peered at her through the gates. She looked as though she wanted to say something sensible as a plea towards them, but every time she started a sentence she would be interrupted by a great contracting pain that turned her words into screams.

"What shall we do with her?" One guard asked, leaning over to look down on her creased face. Another responded, gazing at her in small pity.

"It's not like she can get up and walk away on her own."

"What does it matter to us? Look at her, she's fit for a brothel, that one!"

The woman cried out a desperate 'no', dropping back into a fit of vicious coughs and sobs. Her dark hair stuck to her reddened face, staying there even as she thrashed in the snow, writhing like a pathetic animal in pain. One of the many cooks, a woman, gave the guardsman a sound slap on the arm.

"Have a little heart, will you? Open the damn gate and let me have a look at her!"

"But the Czar—,"

"The Czar is meeting with the Duma, he won't know a thing." the cook interjected, pushing her chubby form past the gates before they were even fully open. For any other woman the guardsman would have dismissed her immediately, but this was the head cook's wife, and as much as you didn't cross the head cook you didn't cross his wife. The cook leaned down and pressed a hand to the woman's sweaty forehead. Flipping the bloodied frock up, she pulled down the woman's panties, exposing her to the cold air. The woman writhed and panted, running low on endurance. With every contortion that followed, a small spurt of blood sprayed out, soon staining the white snow beneath her to a sickening ruby color. Seeing this, the cook frowned. There was, without a doubt, far too much blood. Something was horribly wrong beyond comprehension. Something unfixable, something malignant and malicious; a plague that had cursed this woman so thoroughly that not even her child could live a normal life. The cook straightened out her bloodied clothes and spoke worthless words of encouragement to the young, hopeless woman.

"She isn't even on the palace grounds, just let her go."

The cook whipped back her head and glared furiously. Using her brawny arms, she gripped the screaming woman by the ankles and dragged her until she was just inside the courtyard; no small feat even for a woman of her size and strength. The woman shrieked and clawed at the snow, the ice digging underneath her nails and prying them away from her skin.

"Now she is." The cook said flatly.

The woman thrashed, screaming out a name that she continued to scream over and over again, sometimes in rage, sometimes in pain or desperation, sometimes just as a sob. And yet, through everything else she could only say this one name now.

"_Dmitri!_"

Again, as the people from the palace started to crowd around her as they realized the horror of the situation.

"_Dmitri!"_

The cries of shock and pity as they realized that the woman was fading fast into darkness.

"_Dmitri...,_"

They wondered over who 'Dmitri' was. Those not directly involved shared their thoughts and guesses, ultimately concluding that Dmitri was the father of the child, a brute of a man that didn't want anything to do with her after she became pregnant. Those kneeling down close to her tried to get her to calm down and to stop screaming the man's name, only telling her to breathe.

She did not, could not listen. Nothing good was happening to her. The more her body tried to push the baby out, the more it failed, only leaving more blood to soil the snow. The intensity of her labor

"She's not going to make it! You better leave her, she's naught but a peasant anyways!"

"He's right, she's gone!"

"I know all this, it's not the woman I'm here for!"

Before anyone could comprehend there was a flash of silver, and the woman's eyes bulged and she screeched as the knife sliced open her soft, stretched stomach. A man, one of the other servants, held the handle of the knife delicately as he guided it in and out of her belly. Her skin splayed open, revealing the uterus. The servant cut again, and before everyone's eyes a baby reached out through the bloody mess, taking its first gulps of air and using them to scream along with its mother. The servant man reached down and took the baby from the mother's stomach, severing the umbilical cord and wrapping him in his coat before handing him off to the head cook's wife. She then wrapped the baby in another layer of clothing, soothing its insatiable cries.

"It's a boy," she announced quietly. Cleaning placenta and fluid off of the baby's ugly, beautifully creased face, she looked down.

The woman's eyes were glassy and glazed over. Crookedly she lay there in a pool of her own blood, white snowflakes from a new snowfall resting on her cheek to kiss her into oblivion. Her eyes were gazing upwards at what was in the cook's arms, aching to see what she would never see again.

The mother was dead.

Silently the crowd of servants and guardsmen shuffled away. A few stronger servants carried the body away to be cremated, some others scrubbed the blood away from the courtyard even though it was frozen into the snow and their memories. The cook's wife carried the bawling child into the servant's quarters, where a wet nurse whose baby had recently died was. This newborn wouldn't die, no. If it was supposed to die, it would've already, from the exposure to the cold and from the lack of milk that it so yearned for in its opening seconds of life.

The cook's wife told the nurse that the boy's name was Dmitri, by choice of the dying mother, and gave the baby to the nurse to care for. In the back of her mind the old wife knew that Dmitri was probably the last name in the world that the mother wanted to name her child, but she didn't want to take any more responsibility than she already had for the boy. Whether the world wanted to or not, the baby boy was named Dmitri, and he was now destined to grow up as a serf to the royal family bearing the name of the man who wronged his mother.

The servants and the rest of the small world of the palace forgot about the baby boy born in blood and steel. He was guided into the secret shadows to be kept in the shadows, and, as long as he lived there, would remain in the shadows forever more.


	9. Gray

_Just finished this literally about two minutes ago. So like...one AMish? Yeah, I just. Couldn't. Stop. Writing! I was in the perfect mood and I thought this was so clever with the way I worded things and pfft. Apologies for typos (there HAVE to be some!) but I'm not proofreading on a brain that's half asleep already so changes may come later._

_Where did the Soviet soldiers go at the end? NO ONE KNOWS._

* * *

**Gray**

There was nothing to it really. He was a selfish, heartless bastard and that was that. Yes he _did_ get her to Paris and yes he _did_ find her family (though he must have been as shocked as she was) but he still was nothing more than a criminal con artist, and he was going back to where he belonged.

Russia.

The festering wound of society, the sewers where the rats like him dwelt. He said he wouldn't miss it, but he also said that he didn't belong in Paris. He belonged elsewhere, in the place that he would never miss. Everything about him deserved to go back to where the pus and blood gathered.

And she thought this way because he had hurt her _so much_. He had torn her core out and smashed it against the walls of the opera house. He had built her a sturdy foundation for her self esteem and image, brought her from orphan to princess in a matter of a few simple months, then crumbled everything as he shattered her knees with a hammer, forcing her to crumple at both his and the empress's feet. She didn't even care that she eventually found out that she was the _real_ Anastasia. By his act of bringing her up to the highest person in the world only to be crushed under his uncaring, selfish heel removed her heart and any compassion she had ever had for him from her body, burying it in the ground beneath her feet.

So the blood drained from her body and her eyesight. Color gradually faded from her vision, and as differences between the hues of her world melted into neutrality so did her emotions. At first her kindness disappeared, replaced by resentment, anger, sadness, but it quickly turned to cold apathy as the days wore on. The more days that passed without him there, the more Anastasia forgot about him, living in the present with her new-found grandmother, new-found family. New-found grays. New-found detachment.

She didn't even care that she couldn't see in color anymore. She figured that if she could, she would only see a raging red every time she thought of him and his foxish, demonic nature. Incidentally, whether she noticed it or not, she was always, _always_ thinking about him in the corners of her mind. There was only one other person in the world that realized what was on her mind constantly, and after a week of watching her mope alone to herself when she thought no one was around, the dowager empress confronted her grand-daughter.

"You shouldn't forget him, you know." She said one day as Anastasia was gazing morosely out of the window, sitting on the sill on a sunny evening.

"I don't know who you're talking about," she mumbled. The dowager smiled one of her knowing little smiles, one that secretly irritated Anastasia to no end.

"You know very well who I'm talking about. And you're trying to forget him, and that's not making you happy."

"_He's_ the one that made me unhappy, grandmama," Anastasia grumbled, turning her gaze to her lap as she fiddled uselessly with her fingers.

"And why did he make you unhappy?" She softly asked. Anastasia's knuckles turned white as she closed them into tight fists.

"By bringing me all the way here only to—,"

"I did not ask how, I asked _why_," the dowager wisely interrupted. As Anastasia sat there, mouth agape as she struggled over her hateful words, her grandmother softened her voice, "_Why_ were you hurt over him?"

"B...Because...," she started, wringing her dress into awful wrinkles and folds.

"If it wasn't for him I wouldn't be speaking to you now. He was the one who forced me to talk to you. He _knew_ who you were, had actually figured it out at some point."

"And he took the money and left," Anastasia blurted angrily, past the tears welling in her eyes, "He took the money and _left_, because that's all he was ever after anyways,"

"Use your head, Anastasia," the dowager cajoled. Anastasia looked up at her, both anger and confusion in her eyes, "Think about what you know. You told me yourself; Russia is the last place on earth anyone would want to live. So why earn a fortune and return there?"

"It was his home?" she guessed after stuttering over her syllables looking for an answer. The dowager twisted her mouth.

"The orphanage was your home. Would you go back?"

Anastasia opened her mouth. Then closed it. Opened it again. Stared at her grandmother, stupefied. Then closed it again.

As she stared at the washed-out face of her grandmother, a fleck of color returned to her vision for just a second.

Suddenly she knew.

–

The roads were so familiar and yet so ugly and alien to her. The scenery was urban, poor, pushed aside for greater things to plow their way through if it would ever get that far. Construction cranes everywhere were creaking as they tirelessly worked towards that specific goal—a goal that everyone knew that would never be reached no matter how much they tried.

Saint Petersburg. She found it hard to believe that at a recent point in her life it was a lifetime success just to reach the city boundaries.

She was dressed practically and inconspicuously. Wearing a simple, dull colored frock (or so she was told, she only knew the exact shade of gray) underneath her old, faithful coat and battered hat she fit in perfectly with the varied laymen of Russia. Returning here alone was in retrospect a stupid idea, but Anastasia knew that she had been through much worse. There were no troubles in her trip getting here, just the constant loneliness that etched itself into her brain. Leaving Pooka with Sophie and Vlad was the best decision, but she soon found that she was yearning for anyone's company, human or canine. Apart from that, her only trouble now was that she was no longer under her royalty's protection, walking the streets of the Soviet Union. And, of course, she had absolutely no idea where to look.

She ruled out the palace first. Somehow she knew that it was the most painful and stupidest place to retreat to, and that bothering with it would only waste her time.

And so she was reduced to walking the streets, studying every man that passed her as discreetly as possible. Vlad had helped her narrow her search down to a district that he suspected he could easily be found in, and that increased the chances of finding him greatly. Probably. Traveling back here was a stupid thing to do, even though her grandmother encouraged it for her happiness. At first she honestly didn't know how this would make her happy, but the long hours on the train made her think, made her shape her thoughts until she was simply just unsure of how it would play out; she was just sure that she now yearned to see him once more. Just once.

She sat down on a rotten, wobbly bench on the edge of the street, resting her chin in her hand. It was hopeless, of course. Finding him in this knot of people was impossible. She wasn't living in a children's love story. Things did not have a fairytale ending in the real world—much, much less in the Soviet Union.

Feeling uncomfortable after a while, as if there were menacing eyes staring her down through a scope, she got up and started to walk again, heading in the general direction of the hotel room she was renting. The hotel was run down, but owned by an old couple who knew what they were doing. It was near the docks in the industrial area of the city, old and musty but strangely inviting once you got to know the people running the business. To be perfectly honest it wasn't the nicest district for a girl to get caught up in, but if she kept her head down her feminine face was hidden, courtesy of her hat.

The skies about her turned into a lush lavender as the sun dipped into the horizon. Quietly her stomach poked at her, asking for dinner soon. She stuffed her hands in her pockets and looked forward, knowing that the old couple would have some sort of soup prepared for her and the other few patrons they had.

Ahead of her a man, walking slowly with a heavily disheartened slouch, approached her, head down and face concealed by his hat. She thought nothing of him; many people walked just like him in the streets. It wasn't until she saw the pair of soldier only about a hundred paces behind him peeking around a street corner, most definitely intent on following this particular man. Perhaps it was because she was disheartened herself, but something urgent in her head screamed, and as she came in level with the steps of the man walking in the opposite direction, she made a rash decision and shoved him into an alleyway. Knowing the soldiers didn't see this yet, she pushed him up against the craggy, soppy brick wall, pressing him flat. She had seen the aftermaths of the soldiers—or rather, didn't see, as people disappeared off of the streets all of the time without warning, rhyme, or reason. And she didn't want to see it happen in front of her eyes. For one, she wouldn't be able to live with herself if she ended up doing nothing, and for two, she'd get carted away with the man because she would _most likely_ do something against it.

"I know there are soldiers following me." The man stated grimly, hopelessly, almost. He was not hopeless about the pursuit of the Soviets, though, that much seemed to be clear within the sadness of his voice. But that's not what caught her off-guard, no. In the shadow of the alley she looked up at the man's face, eyes wide. He was in the process of shaking her off when she reached out, pawed for the handle of a side door to the industrial building, opened it, and shoved him inside before quickly closing the door behind them.

"I don't _care_ if they get me or not, whoever you are. I don't know where you're from, but it's absolutely hopeless here, there's no saving anyone." the man said, frustrated and annoyed. Anastasia gripped a heavy sack full of heavy sawdust and threw it in front of the door with a grunt before she replied to him.

"Shut up, Dmitri."

There was silence. For a while she was afraid to turn around, but she knew that there was enough light in the room full of sawdust, packaging and shelves for him to see her red hair poking out from beneath her hat.

"You...," he finally managed to squeak out, "You, what are _you _doing here? Get out! Go back to Paris! Oh my god, _why_ are you here?"

She took a deep breath and pivoted on her heel, bringing her old, familiar sharpness to her voice—the type of sharpness she was used to having around him.

"No. Why are _you_ here? I came here to get answers, and now that I've found you, tell me. Tell me everything."

Dmitri opened his mouth, feeble sounds replacing his voice as he struggled to gain it back, shock and fear lacing his eyes as he stared at her. It was an understatement to say that he was surprised to see her here, and now that she was standing before him raw fear snaked through his veins; fear for her well-being, fear for her survival in this despicable place.

"I...I can't, Any—," he gulped over her name before avoiding it all together, "_Why_ did you come here? To find me? For god's sake, _why?_"

"Because I want to know!" She suddenly exploded. Anger was definitely present in her voice and in her actions, but deep down she couldn't be angry, especially not at a time like this, no. As she spoke though, her voice pushed him to the far wall as she advanced on him, "I want to _know_ why you would just run off like that! It isn't as obvious as you think! Why would you take your reward and return to this stupid little hell hol—,"

She stopped.

Staring at his eyes, the wheels in her head finally turned into the conclusion as he stared back.

"You didn't take the money."

Pain and multiple pleas ranging from forgiveness to mercy ran across his eyes, and she knew that it was the truth.

"You didn't take the money."

Repeating the words didn't make it any less surreal to her. Dmitri stood there, staring at her, neither denying nor confirming anything. It was true. It was true. It was the only possibility.

"You _idiot!_" Anastasia screamed, throwing a fist at his chest, "You _idiot!_ Why _didn't_ you take the money? That's what you wanted! That's what you recruited me for! You wanted to get _away _from this place, to leave this _all behind!_ So why! _Why_? Why let yourself fall back down here, _why_ let those soldiers carry you away to god knows where, _why_ didn't you _tell me_?"

Dmitri flinched, but took each punch she threw at him, knowing that he deserved it. Anastasia buried her face into his chest so harshly that it burned.

"I...couldn't," he confessed softly, "I...I just couldn't tell you. And I couldn't take the money, either, I just...,"

He gulped, and cursed his voice for cracking in turn for masking his tears.

"I don't know."

"Nevermind," Anastasia spoke into his chest, "Forget I said anything." Dmitri looked down at her, but before he could ask a question she had lifted her head and pressed her lips to his, the close contact causing her hat to topple off of her head, cartwheeling down her back until it rested on the dusty floor.

Though the kiss wasn't that long or passionate, Dmitri was panting when he broke away. Locking his brown eyes onto her blue ones, so many wordless questions floated in his mind, most of them focusing on how she could do that after all of the grief and betrayal that he had caused her only weeks before.

"Any—Anastasia...," he whispered in disbelief.

"It's Anya," she corrected lowly, a long-lost smile on her face, "_Ahn-yah_."

A catharsis of happiness threatened to break the levy behind both their eyes. They didn't know why, or how, but they were both here together, and in such a way that could only be reached by the subconscious until this point.

Dmitri undid the loose ponytail as he buried his fingers in her fiery hair, feeling its silk caress his hand in forgiveness as he leaned down for another, deeper kiss.

The world exploded into color.


	10. Brown

_This one seems a little odd to me, generally because the movie is happier than this particular subject and doesn't touch upon it. (of course) I just pretty much went off of what I would most likely do in Anya's shoes, which is much of the same in this story. At first, you know, I'd be all "Yeah bro let's go to Paris!" followed shortly after the point of no return with "GOD DAMN IT WHAT WERE YOU THINKING THIS IS DANGEROUS"_

_Something along those lines..._

_Only one more after this one!_

* * *

**Brown**

It was true that she did not think of any of the possible outcomes of this journey before she flagged down Dmitri and Vlad before they receded back into the labyrinth of the palace. All she had wanted to do was to go to Paris, and since that was her ultimate goal that was the only thing she focused on, no matter the costs. But as she pulled her brown coat over her to serve as a blanket, her mind screamed at her for her stupid ignorance. These were simply just two men, as off of the streets as she was, that out of the blue offered to escort her to Paris, free of cost.

If the click-clacks of the train weren't so steady, she would've been much more anxious about this than she ended up being. Without the tick tock of the tracks her sudden fear could've led her to make a bigger mistake than the one she already made two days ago at the Winter Palace. She could be impulsive sometimes, but she never imagined herself to be so blind as to almost immediately accept the invitations of two (possibly insane) men to accompany them to Paris. The warnings that had blared in her head when they started rattling off about how much she resembled a missing grand duchess now returned with even greater force, questioning not only the mentality of the two men but also their ulterior motives.

There was no way in both heaven and hell that they would willingly risk their necks to the Soviets to escort her out of the country all the way to France for little to no cost. People were not that courteous or kind. An escort to the train station? Plausible. Buying her a ticket and getting her traveling papers? Stretching it. Accompanying her all the way to the western side of the continent with no fees or favors on her part, not even a small compensation of money or labor? Things like that did not happen. Or rather, they _did_ happen, but only with sorry, sorry consequences.

What _was_ she thinking?

She had let them take advantage of the one thing she would sacrifice anything and everything to have. Granted that yes, she had little to sacrifice so it wasn't that great of a loss on her part, but she knew that what she did have to sacrifice were things too great to give away just to find out her identity. And she wasn't thinking of such a thing. _Why_? For all she knew she was going to be trafficked away. Cursing herself for her total lack of foresight, she creaked her eyes open to just slits.

Dmitri was sitting there across from her, busying himself with their papers. Vlad sat next to him in her direct line of sight, every now and then tickling Pooka's belly. Suddenly he stood up, and Anya squeezed her eyes shut.

"I just need a short walk. I'll be back." Vlad grunted as he stretched.

"If she wakes up I'm forcing the conductor to find you." Dmitri said flatly. Vlad chuckled. Anya tried to soften her eyes so it wasn't so obvious that she was keeping them shut and listening intently to their conversation.

"Come now, a little alone time isn't poisonous you know,"

Anya stiffened underneath her coat.

"_She_ likes you. You like her. _She_ hates me, _I_ hate her. It's really a big difference, Vlad," Dmitri said as Vlad shuffled to the door.

"Don't smirk like that! I _know_ what you're thinking!" he hissed as the big man opened the door and stepped out into the hallway. Anya heard Vlad laugh to himself as he lumbered down the hallway. Dmitri settled coarsely back into the seat with a sigh of indignity.

She forced her mind and limbs to relax, forcing herself to forget what she had just heard. She was probably reading too much into the conversation; something had probably happened earlier between them that Vlad was smirking about. But a desperate part of her mind just could not help but delve deep into paranoia as far too many ulterior motives swam about in the deep waters of her fear.

Something jumped onto her coat, prancing from her thighs to her hips up to finally rest in the crook between her back and the seat. Startled, she jolted violently, initially assuming that it was not her perky little dog that had decided to clamber all over her. Pooka barked in surprise at the spasm and she opened her eyes, mouth agape as she panted a little too heavily.

"Whoa, remind me to never wake you up, ever." Dmitri stated with raised eyebrows. She glanced up at him, narrowing her eyes to a fierce glare.

"Yes. _Please_ don't wake me up, _ever_." she seethed coldly before she shifted her body so she was lying on her stomach, paying Pooka no heed as the puppy struggled to paw his way until he wasn't somewhat crushed between her and the seat. Dmitri breathed a low, drawn out 'okay' and turned back to the traveling papers as Anya propped her arms and chin up on her bag so she was gazing out at the countryside running swiftly past them, the snow glittering handsomely in the light of the fading afternoon. Pooka walked in circles on the small of her back before settling down. Tingles from her spine crawled up into her head and raked their hair-thin nails against her brain even though she knew it was only Pooka that was touching her in any way possible.

She struggled to come to terms with what she had been thinking about and why she was so eagerly grasping this concept as fact when she had no proof. Vlad she was almost sure would do nothing against her—there was not much he could do except crush her, anyways. She and Vlad were stark opposites of each other—he had a fine round frame with warm, jolly pudge to compliment it. Her body was almost terrifyingly skinny, bony, even. The only thing that made this unnoticeable was her turnip sack of a dress that was so baggy she practically drowned in it. Looking at her legs though showed more than enough; her black stockings which would stretch tight across a normal woman's legs sat loose around her ankles and knees, proving that she was more bone than meat. Vlad would probably not have her by that fear of harming her, and she was relieved immensely by this aspect.

But Dmitri was a different story. He was just a few years older than her if she was guessing correctly, lean and strong, and unbearably cocky, foxy in attitude and sleazy in his bargains. It's true that he had yet to sufficiently beat her in a match of forked tongues, but when it came to what she was fearing she had little to no chance against him should he ever want to take advantage of her.

Anya shivered at the thought, and uncomfortably shifted her blue eyes to stare at him. Her imagination could all too easily see how effortless it would be for him. Taller than her, with moderate strength in both arms and legs that would overpower her scrawny frame. And she suspected that he'd use his sly tongue every step of the way too, so she wouldn't know what was happening until it was too late to change anything (not that she could really change anything in her current state.)

"I'll bite. What are you staring at?" Dmitri said somewhat accusingly from over the top of his passport. Anya tore her eyes away and stared grimly at the ice accumulating at the bottom of the window in frosty flowers. She was quiet for a long time, prompting Dmitri to ask again. Before he could she interrupted his drawn breath, studying the frost so intensely that he swore that they would melt from her gaze.

"What do you want me for?" She asked, no hint of childish banter or fire in her voice. Just a serious, accusatory glow from an angry candle deep inside her. Dmitri blinked at the sudden and unexpected change of pace and heart.

"What...?"

"No, that's not—," she murmured to herself, "What do you want from me?"

"I...what? As in...,"

She flicked her head to him sharply, eyes shining more than they should've. The immense tidal wave of courage it was costing her to ask such things showed through, and Dmitri felt the weight of that wave as he realized just what kind predicament he had now found himself in.

"You expect me to _really_ believe that you're going to take me _all the way _to Paris at no cost; no money, no food, no paybacks, no...god help me, no _satisfaction_, _no debts whatsoever_?" She spat disdainfully, hugging her brown coat about her, shielding her from revealing any sort of weakness to him and to herself.

"Uh...yes." Dmitri responded, in all seriousness, sounding as if it should've been obvious even though he was fully aware that it was _not_, "Yes, I do."

"Do you think I'm _stupid_?" She growled, "Just a poor little orphan girl off the streets, _she doesn't know anything_."

"Listen, Anya," Dmitri said, putting the travel papers away for more effect on her and molding his voice to be as smooth and sincere as possible, "We're not out to trick you, we're just solving one of the greatest mysteries of the modern world."

"But what's in it for you? Fame? You don't seem like the type to like fame _at all_." She barked. To be honest, Dmitri flinched inwardly at that one. No, he certainly wasn't one for fame, but he fully accepted that going down in history books as the man who revealed Anastasia to the world (whether it to be truth or con) as a side effect of the whole ordeal. He wasn't entirely opposed to it. But he'd rather not be recognized in the streets, true. He liked being alone. Keeping his smooth tone, he slowly worked his way around his words, weaving them to keep the fabric opaque in front her eyes, but weaving them in such a way that she could at least see through it to know that he wasn't trying to trick her (at least not in _that_ way) whatsoever.

"Does there have to be something for me? Can't it be that we're just friendly strangers helping you to find your possible family?"

"No," Anya contradicted, an alien, weak softness accidentally breaking through her voice, "That doesn't happen. You want something else from me, and don't lie."

"I don't," Dmitri replied, his voice calm, "Not like that,"

"How can I trust you?" she asked, curling her brown coat around her tighter.

"You can't," He finalized softly, picking up her fake passport. Anya stared at him as he pretended to read. Part of her wanted to continue asking questions—not the interrogating kind, but the kind that would satisfy her fear until it was either snuffed out or within the ranges of at least feeling protected, but as she gazed at him every question that she had in her mind faded instantly from her memory.

He had answered as honestly as he could. Sure, he denied that he wanted anything to do with her intimately, but he had answered as honestly as he possibly could—she couldn't trust him really. She tucked her knees close to her chest, though not out of insecurity. Looking at him in wonder and in all honesty a bit of surprise, she smiled inwardly to herself as she readjusted and laid back down. Of course she wouldn't give up the prospect of constantly bantering with him for anything, but his response, as honest as he could possibly make it, comforted her in some way. Closing her eyes once again, she put most of her mind at ease. She still didn't like him, not in the slightest. But she at least knew that he didn't lie _all_ the time.

Dmitri watched her from just over the top of the pamphlet as she settled back down into slumber. Did he want to sleep with her? Hell no. But he was pleased. He had found a way to weasel through to her soft side and win at least some emotion over. As long as he could dangle _something_ in front of her face as a possible means to keep her with them at all costs, things were better for him.

She had played right into his hands.


	11. Black

_And here's the last one! I must admit the ending wasn't that easy to write because I wasn't very excited about it, but I confess I love everything especially before the little dash-break between the two parts of the story. Kind of a long chapter, but it took a while to write and revise until I got it how I wanted it. Now, this installment may seem shallow in some areas, and there's a reason behind that. I don't think I'll be writing any more one-shots for Anastasia for a while anymore, and that reason is this: The companion story to "Red Blood, White Snow" is being painstakingly written (I say painstakingly because I kind of fail at writing super duper happy cute-cute things, and that's how the entire beginning is. Grah.) and once that and the Silent Hill 4 novelization are finished? This movie gets a nice novelization. I hate being so late with things because again it looks like I'm stealing from **J. Fontaine**, but it's true, I'd really like to take on a novelization for this. I think. Novelizations take time and thought. I would also think that it'd be shorter than SH4 would be._

_Also, you'd want to check out my LiveJournal. The link is in my profile, the username is Brezifus if you'd just like to search. In short, I'll be posting lots of story fragments open for edit by anyone who'd like to chip in on my stories as they're being written. I highly recommend it-stories will come out better with opinions and such from you people.  
_

_Finally, if you reviewed and I haven't replied, I apologize. I'll get around to it someday! I swear! Maybe after midterms...Anyway, enjoy the last installment for this!_

_

* * *

_**Black**

Small country roads were somewhat dangerous to travel on, mostly because of how unkempt they were and how far the nearest town was. Traveling on them via horse and carriage also wasn't the smoothest way to go, but a friendly merchant offered a free ride for them to a Czech village just on the border with Germany. For some time they exchanged small talk; the merchant, being of Czech descent, complaining bitterly of the forced union with Slovakia. They listened as sympathetically as they could before the sun set in front of them. The road widened, and the merchant announced that they were only perhaps two hours off from their destination. Settling down into the seats of the carriage, Vlad, Dmitri, and Anya dozed as the clouded sky dimmed.

There was no moon to be seen, allowing dark shadows to be cast everywhere. One could barely make out the other's outline in the darkness, only by the soft blue highlights that barely stood out in the approaching night.

The carriage was covered but old and ragged, open holes where window panes should've been and all of their luggage strapped precariously on top. Even so they had to raise their voices to converse with the driver, and due to the curtains that replaced glass they could not see very well even with the light of the lantern outside. If it wasn't for the lurch as the horse bucked and bolted, they would have assumed that the gunshot was a hunter and intended for someone else entirely—until the carriage soared over a very unexpected and one-sided lump in the road.

Dmitri, acting impulsively, opened the side door of the carriage and stuck his head out. Turning it from side to side, he squinted into the darkness that the frantic lantern only helped to sharpen.

"_Be careful_, lad!" Vlad warned as he struggled to keep his hat on as the carriage rocked back and forth. Dmitri barely heard him as he saw the dark shape on the road fading away from them, unmoving. The horse took a sharp curve, throwing him backward into the fairly small compartment. Anya's sharp shoes and Vlad's worn boots greeted his back as he toppled onto them, and he squirmed in a desperate act to find a comfortable spot. Grunting as the carriage rolled over the gravel road on barely four wheels, Dmitri gripped their legs to keep steady as the carriage crashed about, nearly tipping topsy turvy as the spooked horse continued to gallop fiercely. He opened his eyes once the carriage bounced down a straight streak of road, seeing Anya and Pooka gazing down at him, Vlad's face scrunched in concentration as he tried to keep his balance and his lunch.

"He's dead," Dmitri gasped.

"What?" Anya replied, petting Pooka's head nervously.

"Our driver. I'm guessing he was shot and then we ran him over,"

"That's...That's awful!" Anya yelled over the din of the road, "Why would someone do that?"

"Bandits," Vlad guessed as Dmitri struggled to sit back down next to him.

"Very stupid bandits," Dmitri furthered, "What kind of idiot fires a gun near a horse?"

"Perhaps it was a confused hunter?" Vlad suggested as he shifted deeper into his seat.

"Could be," Dmitri grasped the handle of the door to keep it from swinging open. The hinges were failing and the latches were weak, it didn't take much for them to flap like a flailing bird

"I'm certainly glad that you two have heartfelt feelings for his painful death," Anya folded her arms around Pooka sarcastically. She could see Dmitri grin falsely in the dim light.

"Why of course, Your Highness, we'll hold a church service and send flowers to his family later,"

"You're a holy terror, Dmitri, and—,"

Anya was cut short as the horse swung the carriage over rocky shoulders of the road, the wheels creaking and the luggage overhead scraping over the poorly tended roof, threatening to either break loose or collapse in on them at any moment.

"I've been thinking," Vlad mentioned over the constant grit of the wheels, slightly nauseated, "that maybe leaving the horse attached to the carriage is not such a good idea,"

There was half of a second where everyone was silent before Dmitri jumped up with a 'fine, fine', unlatching the door and pulling his body to the outside of the carriage, gripping the top rails that corralled their sliding suitcases. He could tell the corrals would not hold for long especially if he was holding onto them for dear life. Were they to have any more stress put up against them with the luggage it would be the twine fence snapping under the power of many angry bulls. Scraping his feet along the walls of the carriage, he held a breath and began to slide himself to the front seat

"Oh," Vlad said quietly, "I knew he was going to do that, but no amount of knowing is going to make me less scared for his outcome,"

Anya twisted her mouth half-skeptically before going back to attempting to calm Pooka.

Keeping his body close to the carriage, Dmitri carefully inched his way to the front. Raising his body upwards in a vain attempt to escape the furiously spinning wheels, he fought back the pain as his clacking teeth bit his lip and tongue from the roughness of the gravel road. His heart was pounding only slightly less than when they were on the train—for one the train had a possibility for a much more deadly end, and for two the horse would at least look after its own well-being, so there were little to no chances of it plummeting off a cliff. And there was no fire involved here—as long as the lamp that was dangling on the corner of the carriage remained intact. Dmitri sucked in a breath, counted to three, and, keeping a firm grip on the guard rail, swung his legs forward, letting go of the rail at the last second to twist his body to land on the front seat.

His foot missed, and he choked over a scream as he harshly slipped downwards.

By sheer fortune his hand clawed and caught on the edge of the seat and his foot was stopped abruptly by the pristine placement of the splinter bar.

_Now_ his heart was pounding faster than the incident on the train.

"_Dmitri_!" Anya called out into the wind, "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, fine!" He yelled back, seeing the gravelly road scroll underneath him without slowing down, "I just slipped!"

"I wouldn't call that fine!" She replied, her head and shoulders leaning out of the small window, simultaneously keeping the door closed.

"You wanna come give me a hand? You're _welcome!_" He snapped in response as he started to pull himself up.

"Do you really mean that?"

"_No!_"

"Okay, fine!" She dismissed with a wave as she retreated back into the carriage. Dmitri filled his cheeks with a breath, releasing it as he rolled his eyes. That girl. If she wasn't the key to his success he would throw her overboard.

Dragging himself up onto the seat, he plopped down and sighed heavily, feeling oxygen gratuitously course through his veins. He groped about in the wild light of the lantern, finding no evidence of the horse's reins. Sighing again, he pulled his jack knife out of his pocket and slowly, uneasily crawled down until his stomach was against the foot rest. Reaching out with the knife extended, he gripped the tethers that tied the horse to its burden and began to saw through.

His stomach bruised terribly as he laid there, the foot rest digging and cutting into his soft belly. Biting his lip in both concentration and to dull the pain, he prayed that this would go quick and painless.

The bond snapped underneath his hand, and though he wavered precariously for a moment he was able to slowly crawl backwards until he was seated somewhat safely at the front again, the lantern casting sharp highlights on the horse's muscles. He waited until the road smoothed out before he slunk down to sever the tether to the right of the horse. Gripping the knife and struggling to stabilize himself, he began to cut.

Unexpectedly the horse sharply turned to the right, and Dmitri had to scramble to avoid tumbling off, slicing his hand in the process. All in an instant the carriage swung over with the force of the turn, teetering on two wheels. Dmitri felt his legs swerve one way while his shoulders remained another, straining his spine until he heard it crack numerous times. Wrapping his arms and legs tightly around what little of the front seat he could, he gritted his teeth and hoped that he wouldn't soon be keelhauled against the gravel. He didn't have long to hope for such a thing, for as soon as the carriage turned perilously on the hairpin, a scream cut through the dark air, disappearing down the road as it was thrown from the car to somersault painfully on the ground before coming to an abrupt stop.

"_Anya!_" Dmitri cried, looking back as though he could see her in this light. The carriage smashed back down on its four wheels, and though Dmitri's jaw clacked so hard it went numb, he grasped the tether fiercely, cutting through it with the jack knife quickly despite the warm liquid causing his palm to go slick.

The tether held fast by mere threads before snapping, releasing everything from the spooked horse. The horse tore away, its heavy gallops echoing shortly in the night air. Unprepared and yet uncaring as the carriage rebounded, Dmitri found his knuckles crushed against the ground as the front prongs of the seat clipped his chin, drawing blood. His body reacted in pain, but his brain could not register anything but the previous scream followed by Anya tumbling away into the ditch.

Without waiting for an entire stop, Dmitri took off blindly running back down the road, barely hearing Vlad try to yell for him from the cabin.

"Anya! _Anya!_" He called, hoping that he would hear some response, any response from her. Running on raw guesses, he skidded to a stop, searching the side of the road tentatively. Kicking himself for not bringing the lantern with him, he fell onto his hands and knees and continued to crawl forward over the coarse grass and craggy rocks, blind and trembling.

"Anya!" he gasped, drawing himself up beside her. She was breathing lightly, but it was by no means comfortable. Whispering her name over and over again should she be struggling to wake, he brushed her stray hair away from her face. His eyes fought to see in such horrible light, gazing down her crumpled body. Her pathetic canvas dress was splotched with blood, softly glistening black in the dark.

She stirred quietly and Dmitri flicked his staring eyes up to her face.

"Are you okay?" He asked softly. Muttering incoherently as she struggled to grasp language again, she pushed as much power into her voice as she could.

"Hurts...," she mumbled shrilly. Slipping his arms underneath her despite the wretched way she twisted in response, he scooped her up close to his chest. She squeaked in pain and clawed weakly at his shirt.

"Try to sleep," Dmitri murmured as he stood up uneasily, attempting to walk as faultlessly as possible back to the carriage. Anya whimpered herself into slumber; no small feat for someone in such pain while being accidentally jostled with each meaningful step. She shut her eyes tight and fought her way to comfort, trying to divert her mind. It was a skill that she had acquired from the orphanage—focus your mind on something else, anything but whatever was troubling you physically at that moment until you could finally sleep. She focused her thoughts on Dmitri and what he was possibly thinking at that moment. He was the one thing she could pinpoint in the darkness that swirled in front of her eyes that wasn't just from the night sky, the pyramid in a dry, deserted landscape. That she could pay attention to easily. Why had he so eagerly raced back to her when he would normally push her away? What was he thinking, feeling, believing? She could not keep her eyes open.

All he could think about was how incredibly (and almost frightfully) light she was.

–

Vlad and Dmitri had started a fire in a forest clearing just far enough away from the road that if the culprit of the gunfire _was_ a bandit, they would be hard to find in the dark. Working together, the two men had haphazardly dragged the carriage into the sparse pine woods after placing Anya inside. Pooka guarded her loyally; the little dog having avoided injury by jumping to keep in the carriage at the last moment before Anya was thrown. When at last their camp had been set, Dmitri pulled Anya from out of the carriage and laid her out on the ground next to the fire.

Dried blood spotted her torso, nothing excessive, but enough to be worried about. Dmitri glanced up at Vlad who was carefully removing their surviving luggage from the top of the carriage.

"We don't have any water, do we?"

"No," the big man replied as he stepped down with his suitcase, "But we have enough dried food to last us the night."

"Get out the vodka, then,"

"What for?" Vlad raised an eyebrow, "Are we to celebrate Anya falling out of the carriage?"

Dmitri glared at him.

"For cleaning her up. I'm not _that_ much of a bastard, thanks."

Vlad examined Anya's blood stained frock, "That would be all of our vodka, then,"

Dmitri stood up and started rummaging through the bags, "Yeah. Where's the cooking pot?"

"_All_ of our vodka," Vlad repeated, making his point clear. Dmitri paused and looked back at him.

"Come on. You practically fall asleep moments after it touches your lips. Besides, you snore louder when you've been drinking," he pointed out dryly.

"I snore louder? You can sleep through anything, lad, why does it matter to you?" Vlad asked as he pulled out a poor, folded bed mat.

"Because I can hear you in my dreams then. The cooking pot?" Dmitri asked again. Vlad sighed and gestured to his suitcase.

"They're both in there. Just remember that I paid money for that."

Pulling out both the cooking pot and the alcohol, he squinted at the label.

"This is the cheapest stuff out there. Quit complaining, you're starting to replace Anya,"

Vlad smiled as he unfolded the bed mat, "Lift the child up, let me put this under her."

"Vlad, I didn't know you cared," Dmitri said, sarcastically shocked.

"Hah, I didn't know _you_ cared, _you're_ the one who keeps complaining and fighting when it comes to her." Vlad smirked slyly. Dmitri gave him a fierce, unforgiving glare and pointed promptly to the carriage, ordering him to sleep there for the night. Vlad complied only after a short argument with his younger companion over whether or not Anya should take the carriage instead. Dmitri won by reasoning that it would be warmer nearer to the fire, and Vlad reluctantly complied, retiring to the cabin along with Pooka. His stomach was thoroughly nauseated from the adventure, and it wouldn't do him any good to stay up any later trying to deal with it.

Dmitri felt vaguely disgusted. For some reason he was seeing a second reason behind Vlad's abrupt leave, but he pushed that away for the matter at hand.

Pouring the vodka into the pot and nestling it between two logs on the side of the fire, he pulled out an old long-john shirt that had a hole in the armpit and shook the dust off. Then, tentatively, ever so tentatively, he undid Anya's belt and pushed her canvas dress up as far as he dared, stopping just before her breasts. He looked, and didn't know how to feel.

Her skin was scraped and cut in multiple places, circling the bruise that covered her left side. Most of it was still bleeding gently though some had already scabbed over much to his relief. Her stomach—if she even _had_ a stomach somehow hidden and compact underneath her sharp ribs—slowly rose and fell with soft breaths. Dirt smudged into every scrawny crevice courtesy of infrequent baths, soiling the marble that was supposed to be her skin and damaging something that would otherwise be a smooth shade of peach. Most of all, worst of all, most _agonizing_ of all, she was nothing but a skeleton underneath the deceiving frock.

That was all Dmitri could see. Blood, dirt, and bones. He couldn't describe her any other way; there was simply _nothing_ there underneath her skin. Her ribs were sorely poking outwards, reaching out like broken piano keys to fill with air that sustained nothing. It was no wonder that she ate ravenously for her meals, and for sure they had fattened her up since her initial arrival, but nothing had prepared Dmitri for her awful appearance. So skeletal. So deathly. _No one_ should be that thin. He had been there before, he had begged at the hand of starvation, he knew _everything_ about how her body looked and felt. _Nobody_ should ever have to suffer that, not even Anya.

Dmitri shivered as he inadvertently thought back to the winters where he had to make do with sparse food, trudging out into the harsh snows to find a loving place to stay. He remembered the accepted numbness so clearly that his stomach shrank in fear of the memory. The times where your belly deflated as it twisted over itself in pain and hunger and the horrible feeling of finally losing the sensation all together—the relief followed by the terror of never being able to feel such things again—the terror of feeling dead.

Shaking the feeling from his body, he reached back and slid the pot away from the fire before the vodka got too heated. Circling around Anya so his shadow did not hinder the light of the flames, he dipped the shirt into the hot alcohol and wrung the excess liquid out before pressing it against her wounded skin.

Fire beckoned Anya to scream, turning her sleep into a dream, her dream into a nightmare, her nightmare into the waking world. As she screamed the fire pressed further into her side, feeding it until she could only flail uselessly into the empty space. A hand slapped hers aside, and stubbornly kept the fire at her skin, not caring that it was burning her to her bones. She opened her eyes to find real fire to her left, and Dmitri hovering over her burning skin to her right. Crying in anger she swung out at him again.

"Stop it—," Dmitri slapped her hand away, "_Stop it_, Anya!"

"That _hurts_!" she hissed, attempting to claw at his face to no avail as he kept slapping her away.

"I _know_, damn it!" he yelled, putting pressure on her wound until she ceased her squirming. Once she calmed down (or rather, gave up fighting) he released the pressure and sighed, "I know."

She fell quiet as the pain ebbed away into numbness. After a long time of nothing but the fire crackling and popping she spoke again.

"What happened?"

"You were an idiot," Dmitri supplied, "You fell out of the carriage,"

"_Sorry,_" Anya sneered, "I'm sorry for having the misfortune of being _thrown_ like a ragdoll so carelessly away from my safety, I'm sorry I couldn't control the carriage and the horse along with it!"

"You should be," he muttered grimly, rubbing the vodka in. With the way she screamed and the extent of her fall, he could've dropped off the carriage right then and there due to a horrific heart attack. Anya hissed in pain and clenched at the ground.

"What did you say?" she seethed. Dmitri squeezed the soaked shirt and rubbed the loose alcohol deeper into the cuts.

"Nothing,"

"Sounded like a lot of nothing to me," She jerked away from him though he managed to keep the shirt glued to her skin.

"Aren't you _done_ yet, can you stop setting my skin on _fire_ now?" She continued to thrash against him though he continued to remain stubborn and unwavering. They spat unsympathetically at each other as they struggled, Anya even resorting to raking her nails against Dmitri's head. Never straying in his goal to keep the makeshift bandage on her wound partially to help her and partially to protect her from the ugly sight of the bruises and cuts, he used his wiry muscles to his advantage, not allowing Anya to push the soiled cloth away from her side. Then, out of nowhere, she stopped and stared down at her stomach. Dmitri panted in relief, unaware of the emotion in her eyes until the moment before she opened her mouth.

"You...," she whispered in shocked grief.

"Anya, it—," Dmitri managed to sputter before she spoke again, the sound of her voice commanding his silence—a command that he willfully obeyed.

"Take your hands off me," she pleaded softly, staring at her bare midriff exposed to the night air and Dmitri's eyes. Dmitri immediately did as he was told, to her mild surprise, exposing her wound.

Anya's breath caught in her throat and she shivered at the sight of the purple and black bruise bordered by so many bright red cuts. She closed her eyes and swallowed hard. Dmitri studied her expression in the light of the fire, ready for a storm should she bring one upon him. Taking in a shaky breath, she spoke in a shattered voice.

"Am I okay?"

Dmitri kneaded the filthy shirt in his hands, wrapping his knuckles anxiously in the fabric, "How does it hurt?"

"I don't know," she wailed softly, "How is it _supposed_ to hurt? It...it feels like it's crushed,"

"Broken?" Dmitri asked, just able to keep the fear to the back of his throat. Reaching out a tentative hand, Anya's eyes followed his fingers as they inched closer, glistening with the remains of vodka.

"May I...?" he asked. Anya blinked at him, surprised at his courtesy and politeness. Dmitri took this as an affirmative, and gently pressed his fingers to her bruised skin to her watchful eye. She winced and clawed at the fallen pine needles beneath her palms, but the pain was bearable enough.

"I don't think it's broken," he suggested hopefully, "Otherwise you would've screamed." He drew his fingers away. Anya pulled her burlap dress down over her bare stomach the moment his hand left her. Gurgling lowly in pain, she shifted her body so she was facing the flame, her back to Dmitri. The lingering sensation of his touch sparked little bolts of lightning through her skin. At first she knew it was just the pain, but when it didn't go away she was forcing herself to still believe that it was from the bruise and only from the bruise. Besides, she, at that moment, felt horribly un-lady-like and somewhat violated. He had seen her midriff, he had touched the skin on her stomach. It was true that the bruise on her side was brutal and that the blood on her dress was quickly drying to a darker, blacker color in the firelight beside her, but she couldn't shake her mind from the fact that he had seen her body and seen through the lie that her dress had so graciously provided. She hated her skinny, pathetic little body and would do anything to be a plump size, but her manners had kept her away from eating all of their food. After all, they had a small budget to work with, and she _really_ didn't want anyone to know how pathetic she looked underneath the burlap even though she hadn't felt this full in years. She tapped idly on the fallen pine needles and continued the conversation against her pleading judgment.

"I wouldn't know. Have you broken something before?" she spoke to the fire.

"My arm," Dmitri answered, wrapping the shirt in a tight ball, "I guess I was being too disrespectful, so he got me to stop."

Anya turned her face backwards to look at him, "Your father treated you that way?"

A lump formed in Dmitri's throat. He had never intended to imply that the man who broke his arm was his father. He had never, ever, intended to imply that he even had a father. He wasn't about to tell her that outright, and even moreso he wasn't going to say that it was the Head Cook of the royal family that was the one who broke his arm (he had been ridiculed into corners for saying such claims were true before.) The only thing he could do was play along and hope she didn't notice.

"Er...ah, yeah. Why?"

"I just thought that...that parents were good and loving." She turned back to the fire as Dmitri unraveled the drying shirt and folded it back into a ball again.

"You're one of _those_ orphans, huh...," he muttered under his breath. He didn't intend her to hear, nor did he even want to say his thoughts out loud, but he did anyways by involuntary means. Jumping at the sound of her voice, his eyes widened at her response.

"So you were one of the ones that hated the idea of parents," She said to him—not accusatory, not spiteful, just a simple, truthful statement.

"I...how did you know?"

"You stuttered," she smiled at the fire, "You broke your character."

Her smile soon faded into a frown, and a hidden jealousy swirled in her tiny stomach. She closed her eyes so that she couldn't see anything, most of all Dmitri. He had always seemed like one that had the privilege of parents while growing up. _True_ parents, too, parents that loved him. She speculated that Vlad had raised him for a decent part of his life, but the way the two acted around each other...There was only barely a father-son relationship between them. In fact, she could easily say that there was no father-son relationship and they were together firstly because of necessity and then later because they had been together so long that they couldn't imagine life apart. This didn't imply of course that they were sick of and disliked each other, no, far from it. But still, she was jealous that Dmitri at least had somebody to guide him.

Keeping quiet as he stood up, she listened to his footsteps as he circled her, dropping the dirty shirt carelessly onto his suitcase. Settling across the fire on the bare ground and using his arm as a pillow, he shut his eyes forcefully. Anya opened hers. Something had been bothering her ever since their driver had been shot and the horse had taken off. Something about the horse's sharp, opportune turns that tossed them back and forth, specifically the one that caught her off-guard and earned her the great bruise on her side.

"Dmitri?"

"Hmm?"

"Did you feel...strange when we were on the carriage...and, and on the train, too?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well...," Anya struggled to describe it, "Something...cold, like there was somebody else there that was making all these things happen—how the train suddenly had no driver, and the bridge, and the strange turns the horse took, and...well, everything. Did you feel strange?"

Dmitri thought about it for a minute, opening his eyes and gazing down at the new coals of the fire, "They were strange, yes. Not normal."

"Yes, but I mean—what about the color green?"

Dmitri's eyes flashed to hers across the fire, "What about it?"

"Well—,"

"If this is about me then you can forget it."

"No, it's just...I guess I just saw a lot of green during both the train and the carriage incidents. An unnatural green, like somebody lit a green fire or something."

"Odd," he agreed, "Maybe it's just how you reacted to those things,"

"Maybe...," She settled down onto the bed mat that she vaguely recognized as Vlad's and closed her eyes to sleep.

"Anya, about your bruise, and your dress, I—," Dmitri blurted suddenly, cut off by Anya's calm yet distantly annoyed voice.

"Forget it, Dmitri." The fire crackled between them, "I am."

Dmitri turned away from the fire and closed his eyes, falling asleep quickly. Anya followed soon after, little green imps rising in her nightmares to taunt her memory. It was not the first time she had seen those creatures in her mind's eye, and something told her that it would not be the last time either.

Two mornings later they stood in front of the boat that was going to take them to France, and Anya couldn't help but think she saw those green little gremlins scurrying about the ship alongside the rats, her thoughts as black and grim as the moonless night they spent on the border underneath the tall pine trees.


End file.
